often angry. always gen x.

nate silver’s election night guide

Fantastic! Your guide to informed & obsessed Tuesday night viewing. This excerpt is from 538 about what Nate’s up to on election night (live-blogging & coverage with Dan Rather on HDNet), and the whole blow-by-blow of poll-watching is at Newsweek here.

7 PM EST. Polls close in Virginia and Georgia, as well as most of Florida and most of New Hampshire.

Virginia, for my money, is the most important state in this election. If John McCain loses it, his path to victory is exceptionally narrow—he would need to pull out an upset in Pennsylvania, while holding on to Florida and Ohio, and avoiding a sweep out West. Barack Obama has considerably more ways to win without Virginia, but a failure to close out the state would suggest at best a more circuitous route to victory. As Obama remains about five points ahead in most polls of Virginia, what we’re really looking for is a quick call on anything before 8 PM that would indicate that the map has indeed changed from 2004, and not in McCain’s favor.